The feeling of leprosy, forced incarceration, lack of control over the body, extreme loneliness and suicide attempts alongside real death fears leading to writing wills – these are just a few of the disturbing testimonies that emerge from research first done on staying in isolation and recovery hotels.
The study, conducted by Dr. Shirley Bar-Lev, head of the Dror (Emery) Aloni Center for Health Information Research at the Ruppin Academic Center, included 15 respondents who stayed in four hotels in the southern, Sharon and Tel Aviv areas during the months of March-June this year. The first to return from red countries (South Africa, Denmark and the UK) to evacuate to the “Corona Hotels” for isolation.
Anxiety and depression. Staying in isolation in hotels
(Photo: Shutterstock)
Watch returnees from abroad for moments when they heard about the decision to isolate in a motel:
(Photo: Nadav Abbes, Shachar Goldstein)
As part of dealing with corona disease, two types of corona hotels were established: recovery hotels and isolation hotels. A recovery lodge is a hotel converted into a hospital for patients diagnosed with the corona virus, who for various reasons cannot stay in a home hospital, but their medical condition does not require hospitalization. The motel is intended for patients who do not require medical supervision. During the stay in the hotel, the monitoring and medical treatment is independent by the guest in telephone contact with the HMO in which they are insured.
Insulation hotels are designed for people who need isolation but are not sick. Unlike recovery hotels, in isolation hotels do not leave the rooms, walk around the hotel and meet other stayers, for fear of being infected inside the hotel. Therefore, in isolation hotels the supervision is more strict.
The study relied on in-depth interviews with 15 people from the entire population range aged 24-70, who stayed in the Corona hotels, seven men and eight women who stayed between 14 and 63 days in recovery and isolation hotels. Participants were recruited through posting ads on social media when the interviews were conducted via remote call (zoom) or phone.
All of the interviewees in the study chose to evacuate to the Corona Hotel, most of them with the understanding that separating them from their family members would protect their family members from contracting the virus, and some out of good citizenship and a sense of responsibility. Despite this, all study participants described the urgency with which the ambulance arrived to evacuate them to the hotels and the speed with which they were required to pack and be ready.
“You can climb the walls and no one will really save you from yourself”
“The sharp transition from the status of healthy people living their lives in the arms of their families to the status of guests / shelters in hotels is a very shaky experience,” opens the testimony of Noa (all full names are kept in the system), Corona Hotel receptionist describes this sharp transition as difficult for some From the detainees, “there were many difficult cases that I witnessed. Someone came from Eilat because she did not feel well. She was evacuated to a hospital and from the hospital she came to us with nothing. She did not even have a phone or clothes. She also had no desire for life. She wanted to. I wanted to help her, but it’s impossible to just go and buy her. I need special permits and get the family.
“Adults arrived without preparation without understanding where they were going. Confused. With other background illnesses, sometimes because of the immediacy, they arrive without regular medication, and we are a hotel, not a hospital. Even while staying here, it was very difficult to locate them and track their condition. Because they are alone. Every morning we made sure to make phone calls to the rooms to make sure they were alive. If necessary, we involved the social worker and the Knesset member.
For some of the hotel stayers, the Corona hotels turned out to be spaces of extreme experience that tested their adaptability to the living conditions in a facility that is a hotel provider (tourist site), a prison facility provider. Those staying in motels describe the motel as a space detached from the daily experience that takes place outside.
Noa: “Adults arrived without preparation without understanding where they were going. Confused. With other background illnesses, sometimes because of the immediacy, they arrive without regular medication, and we are a hotel, not a hospital. Even while staying here, it was very difficult to locate and track them. Their situation. Because they are alone “
Ronit, a caregiver by profession who stayed in a motel in mid-March, describes the experience as “a difficult and terrible experience for me and others. We left families, some of us have small children, elderly parents, I left children alone at home and it was completely insane. The first days were very difficult. Escape. It’s just me and me. That’s how thoughts about life started, where I am and what I have achieved. And it does not end. The days connect to each other, there is no agenda, no meaning to morning, noon and evening. You can climb the walls and no one will really save you Of yourself. ”
Moshe returned from a long mission abroad, and was informed that he had to stay in an isolation lodge. They would bring the food with a tray outside the room, knock on the door and after 10 minutes it was allowed to open the door and take the tray. I was there 14 days imprisoned alone in a room. Only after a week were I given the opportunity to go out into the yard for five minutes. To ventilate. But I no longer wanted it. I was afraid that if I breathed a little of the air I was so lacking, I would not want to go back and it would be harder for me.
Ronit: “I left children alone at home and it was completely insane. The first days were very difficult. There is nowhere to run. It’s just me and me. That’s how thoughts began to arise about life, where I am and what I have achieved. And it is not over. The days connect, no “What an agenda, there is no meaning to morning, noon and evening. You can climb the walls and there is no one who will really save you from yourself.”
“I thought to myself, and what if I went out and wanted more of this good? Anyone who was not in such a situation could not understand what I was talking about. And yet, I was comforted that I had a room with a sea view. “Otherwise I will die. I must see a landscape that changes before my eyes.”
To Yitzhak, an ultra-Orthodox man with a blessed family who stayed in the lodge, the difficulty was mainly in socializing with strangers in one intimate space, “Staying in a room was a big deal for me because it was very strange for me to stay in a room with someone I don’t know when the agenda is not dictated to me. Very lonely and detached.I ate alone in a room of choice.I had a very hard time attending events like Shabbat meals and social gatherings.
Moshe: “I was there 14 days imprisoned alone in the room. Only after a week were I given the opportunity to go out into the yard for five minutes. To freshen up. But I did not want it anymore. I was afraid that if I breathed a little from the air I was so lacking, Hard”
“There were also no public spaces to walk around. On the last day of my stay I turned off all the TVs. There was something about it that I thought was unfair to some of the people who were there. I guess it’s because of the Sabbath. But there are people in complex situations and television is almost the only thing “That holds them back, even though the hotel is not religious. I saw it as such an arbitrary act. It was forceful.”
Chili, who was in a recovery lodge, talks about the fear that “you will never get rid of him,” “When I arrived I was sure I would be there for three days and stayed there for nine weeks without having any idea when I would be released. I was afraid I would never see home and family again. We felt like lepers. These are thoughts. Uncontrolled. Fulfilled if I was feeling unwell. I would understand. But I felt great and was perfectly healthy and had no one to talk to except the nurse who called to get a report on the indices.
I would wake up to the nurse’s phone ring from sleep and shout that they would take me out, that I was healthy. It drove me crazy that what interested the medical staff was the indices and bye. I yell at the nurse to save me and she’s just worrying about my fever. They did not see in my eyes only the indicators. ”
Dr. Shirley Bar-Lev. Uncertainty involved in managing the disease
(Photo: Alon Bar-Lev)
According to Dr. Bar-Lev, for Tzili and her fellow residents, the sense of detachment and unreality intensified due to the uncertainty involved in managing the disease. A doctor who is present at the scene and knows how to provide answers. ”
Ronit reinforces Tsili’s testimony, “There were a lot of anxiety attacks, a lot of health anxieties. So many people got negative and then positive that it felt like Russian roulette, of what I get, with no connection between the result and the physical experience. One of the hypotheses is that a doctor is hospitalized Raised, that it’s like herpes that incubates in the body and then erupts. One of the isolates just broke down in tears because she thought that if she was a carrier of such a thing, she said in tears, “I will never see my grandparents because I am dangerous.” Also wanted a lot of rumors, were with us in the motel “Four women were widowed that week after their spouses fell ill in Corona while they were at the hotel.”
Chilli: “I would wake up to the nurse’s phone call out of sleep and shout that they would take me out, that I was healthy. It drove me crazy that what interested the medical staff was the metrics and bye. I yell at the nurse to save me and she only cares about my temperature.
Chili testifies, “I felt I was losing it. I roared to the staff on the phone to get me out of there, that my child was two years old, that I left him at home and he did not understand what was happening. Where did mom go? It’s kind of a gold jail but still a jail. I lost the most basic thing. There is a person and it is the choice. Even in the food. There was a green area and a yellow area. It was like a prey. If I did not go out on time and take food, there would be no food. I also did not trust anyone there to take care of me. “But it’s nothing compared to living in complete uncertainty.”
Jacob, another isolate recounts, “It was not a rare sight to stay hungry because others took double servings.” He said, “There were prayers and Torah lessons there, but those who did not connect to it, like me and like many others, were very, very lonely.”
Bina, a doctor who stayed at the Corona Hotel, says: “There was panic and uncertainty. People are locked inside a building and see nothing beyond the walls. There were some who were there for months. They had hard thoughts and some went into real depression and anxiety. It was clear people there needed psychiatric treatment. People who threatened to commit suicide. Around us were security personnel and MDA guarding us. There was real distress “
Ronit, explaining the reasons for the anxiety observed in the motel, “I encountered a lot of post-trauma and some of them on a medical trigger. Against the background of the two daily tests there are many medical triggers, and the phones of the nurses who called once a day would drive some of them crazy. “They were anxious and preoccupied with their bodies. Every measure of every panting – made them hysterical. People who felt good began to think their health was deteriorating. There was a constant fear of death. Some people told me they wrote wills. There was no point where you could say you were out of danger.”
Ronit testifies to the spontaneous organization of hoteliers to provide emotional and medical relief to those in distress, “because staff members could not enter, the Home Front Command would call me for emergency assessments of suicide. People realized there was a psychologist and let me treat them. It was completely insane. There is a doctor who volunteered to receive patients because there was no medical staff, an emergency paramedic nurse and a social worker who were also hospitalized gave a shoulder. The distress there is insane and the demands for help have only increased. There were also young people there who had fun and did not want to leave. But the majority – suffered and there was great distress. “
Bina reinforces the hallucinatory reality, “Within two days of my arrival I opened an impromptu clinic there. I asked them to give us a place to sit and I could receive patients. I asked my family to bring my doctor’s bag with a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope and donated the stator I received. “Urgent support for the multidisciplinary team we set up. After I left, I asked the district nurse to bring me back to work out there so I could continue to provide care.”
Noa notes the staff’s efforts to help the residents maintain a routine and sanity, “We located a bookstore among the residents and arranged a place for him to provide service, obtained donations and opened a playground, collected the residents’ birth dates and wished them well. “The prominent ones and we pulled the” kindergarteners out of them so they could run the kids. We helped the women get to the mikveh. We created a WhatsApp group for the residents. We tried to allow community life. “
To summarize the study, Dr. Bar-Lev listed the mental suffering caused to those staying by the rapid transition between healthy citizens and controlling their bodies – “to the status of inmates in a facility run by the military where the residents felt not only their bodies were expropriated but also the right to exercise discretion.” “The separation from the family and the prolonged stay in an unfamiliar environment” and coercion that was a humiliating and depressing factor, “she said,” in addition to the deliberate distancing of faculty and Home Front Command personnel, which for many was interpreted as a sign of rejection, extreme fear and even disgust. “
The study’s editor, Dr. Shirley Bar-Lev: “There should be as little use as possible of hotel utensils as a solution for isolating people. Imprisonment or involuntary hospitalization, even if in good hospitality conditions, impairs people’s mental integrity, floods anxieties and fears, and undermines their trust in the care systems. “
It raises the lack of mental and medical support that has sharpened the sense of “alone” and established a sense of helplessness, lack of control over their fate, uncertainty and opacity of the caring systems. “Without a professional address that will contain, calm and solve medical and emotional problems, the level of anxiety has risen to the point of death anxiety among healthy people,” says Dr. Bar-Lev in her summary.
In her recommendations, she noted the importance of hotel information, the importance of emotional and medical support staff, and addressing the problem of inactivity and lack of daily routines in hotels, emphasizing, “The use of hotel tools should be avoided as much as possible as a solution for isolating people. Imprisonment or forced hospitalization, even under good hospitality, It harms people’s mental integrity, floods anxieties and fears, and undermines their trust in the treatment systems. ” According to her, corona checks as well as the release of people, should be done transparently and avoid bureaucratic awkwardness while helping residents to evacuate home quickly.
Her research is stamped by Dr. Bar-Lev, in that “if the residents feel that they are partners in the process, are in a protective environment and that there is a purpose to isolating them – the chances will increase that their emotional integrity will be maintained and their trust in the caregivers will be strengthened. We may also see fewer acts of vandalism. “